The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper (top ebook reader TXT) 📖

gentle feelings ever experience at a sudden and endless separation from even the meanest of their associates, she said hastily,—

“Katy, is he gone?”

“No, ma’am,” replied the disturbed damsel, with great bitterness, “he is not yet gone, but he may go as soon as he pleases now, for the worst is done. I do verily believe, Miss Peyton, they haven’t so much as left him money enough to buy him another suit of clothes to cover his nakedness, and those he has on are none of the best, I can tell you.”

“How!” exclaimed the other, astonished, “could anyone have the heart to plunder a man in such distress?”

“Hearts,” repeated Katy, catching her breath. “Men like them have no bowels” at all. Plunder and distress, indeed! Why, ma’am, there were in the iron pot, in plain sight, fifty-four guineas of gold, besides what lay underneath, which I couldn’t count without handling; and I didn’t like to touch it, for they say that another’s gold is apt to stick—so, judging from that in sight, there wasn’t less than two hundred guineas, besides what might have been in the deerskin purse. But Harvey is little better now than a beggar; and a beggar, Miss Jeanette, is the most awfully despisable of all earthly creatures.”

“Poverty is to be pitied, and not despised,” said the lady, still unable to comprehend the extent of the misfortune that had befallen her neighbor during the night. “But how is the old man? And does this loss affect him much?”

The countenance of Katy changed, from the natural expression of concern, to the set form of melancholy, as she answered,—

“He is happily removed from the cares of the world; the chinking of the money made him get out of his bed, and the poor soul found the shock too great for him. He died about two hours and ten minutes before the cock crowed, as near as we can say.” She was interrupted by the physician, who, approaching, inquired, with much interest, the nature of the disorder. Glancing her eye over the figure of this new acquaintance, Katy instinctively adjusting her dress, replied,—

“’Twas the troubles of the times, and the loss of property, that brought him down; he wasted from day to day, and all my care and anxiety were lost; for now Harvey is no better than a beggar, and who is there to pay me for what I have done?”

“God will reward you for all the good you have done,” said Miss Peyton, mildly.

“Yes,” interrupted the spinster hastily, and with an air of reverence that was instantly succeeded by an expression that denoted more of worldly care; “but then I have left my wages for three years past in the hands of Harvey, and how am I to get them? My brothers told me, again and again, to ask for my money; but I always thought accounts between relations were easily settled.”

“Were you related, then, to Birch?” asked Miss Peyton, observing her to pause.

“Why,” returned the housekeeper, hesitating a little, “I thought we were as good as so. I wonder if I have no claim on the house and garden; though they say, now it is Harvey’s, it will surely be confiscated.” Turning to Lawton, who had been sitting in one posture, with his piercing eyes lowering at her through his thick brows, in silence, “Perhaps this gentleman knows—he seems to take an interest in my story.”

“Madam,” said the trooper, bowing very low, “both you and the tale are extremely interesting”—Katy smiled involuntarily—“but my humble knowledge is limited to the setting of a squadron in the field, and using it when there. I beg leave to refer you to Dr. Archibald Sitgreaves, a gentleman of universal attainments and unbounded philanthropy; the very milk of human sympathies, and a mortal foe to all indiscriminate cutting.”

The surgeon drew up, and employed himself in whistling a low air, as he looked over some phials on a table; but the housekeeper, turning to him with an inclination of the head, continued,—

“I suppose, sir, a woman has no dower in her husband’s property, unless they be actually married.”

It was a maxim with Dr. Sitgreaves, that no species of knowledge was to be despised; and, consequently, he was an empiric in everything but his profession. At first, indignation at the irony of his comrade kept him silent; but, suddenly changing his purpose, he answered the applicant with a good-natured smile,—

“I judge not. If death has anticipated your nuptials, I am fearful you have no remedy against his stern decrees.”

To Katy this sounded well, although she understood nothing of its meaning, but “death” and “nuptials.” To this part of his speech, then, she directed her reply.

“I did think he only waited the death of the old gentleman before he married,” said the housekeeper, looking on the carpet. “But now he is nothing more than despisable, or, what’s the same thing, a peddler without house, pack, or money. It might be hard for a man to get a wife at all in such a predicary—don’t you think it would, Miss Peyton?”

“I seldom trouble myself with such things,” said the lady gravely.

During this dialogue Captain Lawton had been studying the countenance and manner of the housekeeper, with a most ludicrous gravity; and, fearful the conversation would cease, he inquired, with an appearance of great interest,—

“You think it was age and debility that removed the old gentleman at last?”

“And the troublesome times. Trouble is a heavy pull down to a sick bed; but I suppose his time had come, and when that happens, it matters but little what doctor’s stuff we take.”

“Let me set you right in that particular,” interrupted the surgeon. “We must all die, it is true, but it is permitted us to use the lights of science, in arresting dangers as they occur, until—”

“We can die secundem artem,” cried the trooper.

To this observation the physician did not deign to reply; but, deeming it necessary to his professional dignity that the conversation should continue, he added,—

“Perhaps, in this instance, judicious treatment might have prolonged the life of the patient. Who administered to the case?”

“No one yet,” said the housekeeper, with quickness. “I expect he has made his last will and testament.”

The surgeon disregarded the smile of the ladies, and pursued his inquiries.

“It is doubtless wise to be prepared for death. But under whose care was the sick man during his indisposition?”

“Under mine,” answered Katy, with an air of a little importance. “And care thrown away I may well call it; for Harvey is quite too despisable to be any sort of compensation at present.”

The mutual ignorance of each other’s meaning made very little interruption to the dialogue, for both took a good deal for granted, and Sitgreaves pursued the subject.

“And how did you treat him?”

“Kindly, you may be certain,” said Katy, rather tartly.

“The doctor means medically, madam,” observed Captain Lawton, with a face that would have honored the funeral of the deceased.

“I doctored him mostly with yarbs,” said the housekeeper, smiling, as if conscious of error.

“With simples,” returned the surgeon. “They are safer in the hands of the unlettered than more powerful remedies; but why had you no regular attendant?”

“I’m sure Harvey has suffered enough already from having so much concerns with the rig’lars,” replied the housekeeper. “He has lost his all, and made himself a vagabond through the land; and I have reason to rue the day I ever crossed the threshold of his house.”

“Dr. Sitgreaves does not mean a rig’lar soldier, but a regular physician, madam,” said the trooper.

“Oh!” cried the maiden, again correcting herself, “for the best of all reasons; there was none to be had, so I took care of him myself. If there had been a doctor at hand, I am sure we would gladly have had him; for my part, I am clear for doctoring, though Harvey says I am killing myself with medicines; but I am sure it will make but little difference to him, whether I live or die.”

“Therein you show your sense,” said the surgeon, approaching the spinster, who sat holding the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet to the genial heat of a fine fire, making the most of comfort amid all her troubles. “You appear to be a sensible, discreet woman, and some who have had opportunities of acquiring more correct views might envy you your respect for knowledge and the lights of science.”

Although the housekeeper did not altogether comprehend the other’s meaning, she knew he used a compliment, and as such was highly pleased with what he said. With increased animation, therefore, she cried, “It was always said of me, that I wanted nothing but opportunity to make quite a physician myself; so long as before I came to live with Harvey’s father, they called me the petticoat doctor.”

“More true than civil, I dare say,” returned the surgeon, losing sight of the woman’s character in his admiration of her respect for the healing art. “In the absence of more enlightened counselors, the experience of a discreet matron is frequently of great efficacy in checking the progress of disease; under such circumstances, madam, it is dreadful to have to contend with ignorance and obstinacy.”

“Bad enough, as I well know from experience,” cried Katy, in triumph. “Harvey is as obstinate about such things as a dumb beast; one would think the care I took of his bedridden father might learn him better than to despise good nursing. But some day he may know what it is to want a careful woman in his house, though now I am sure he is too despisable himself to have a house.”

“Indeed, I can easily comprehend the mortification you must have felt in having one so self-willed to deal with,” returned the surgeon, glancing his eyes reproachfully at his comrade. “But you should rise superior to such opinions, and pity the ignorance by which they are engendered.”

The housekeeper hesitated a moment, at a loss to comprehend all that the surgeon expressed, yet she felt it was both complimentary and kind; therefore, suppressing her natural flow of language a little, she replied,—

“I tell Harvey his conduct is often condemnable, and last night he made my words good; but the opinions of such unbelievers is not very consequential; yet it is dreadful to think how he behaves at times: now, when he threw away the needle—”

“What!” said the surgeon, interrupting her, “does he affect to despise the needle? But it is my lot to meet with men, daily, who are equally perverse, and who show a still more culpable disrespect for the information that flows from the lights of science.”

The doctor turned his face towards Captain Lawton while speaking, but the elevation of the head prevented his eyes from resting on the grave countenance maintained by the trooper. Katy listened with admiring attention, and when the other had done, she added,—

“Then Harvey is a disbeliever in the tides.”

“Not believe in the tides!” repeated the healer of bodies in astonishment. “Does the man distrust his senses? But perhaps it is the influence of the moon that he doubts.”

“That he does!” exclaimed Katy, shaking with delight at meeting with a man of learning, who could support her opinions. “If you was to hear him talk, you would think he didn’t believe there was such a thing as a moon at all.”

“It is the misfortune of ignorance and incredulity, madam, that they feed themselves. The mind, once rejecting useful information, insensibly leans to superstition and conclusions on the order of nature, that are not less prejudicial to the cause of truth, than they are at variance with the first principles of human knowledge.”

The spinster was too much awe-struck to venture an undigested reply to this speech; and the surgeon, after pausing a moment in a kind of philosophical disdain, continued,—

“That any man in his senses can doubt of the flux of the tides is more than I could have thought possible; yet obstinacy is a dangerous inmate to harbor, and may lead us into any error, however gross.”

“You think, then, they have an effect on the flux?” said the housekeeper, inquiringly.

Miss Peyton rose and beckoned her nieces to give her their assistance in the adjoining pantry, while for a moment the dark visage of the attentive Lawton was lighted by an animation that vanished by an effort, as powerful and as sudden, as the one that drew it into being.

After reflecting whether he rightly understood the meaning of the other, the surgeon, making due allowance for the love of learning, acting upon a want of education, replied,—

“The moon, you mean; many philosophers have doubted how far it affects the tides; but I think it is willfully rejecting the lights of science not to believe it causes both the flux and reflux.”

As reflux was a disorder with which Katy was not acquainted, she thought it prudent to be silent;